One of the most momentous political meetings in history was taking place in Moscow last week. It was a meeting not only of two of the world's great men—Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin. It was a meeting of heads of two of the world's great empires. They were meeting on the eve of victory. Each had successfully steered his country through the most perilous military crisis in its history. Now they faced the almost equally perilous crisis of peace. Both men and both their nations passionately wanted and desperately needed peace. On the political decisions they made, on their attitude to one another, the world's peace hinged for perhaps a generation.
The beginnings were auspicious. The official good-will reception of the visiting Britons by the Russians was staged for all the world to see—was itself practically a foreign policy. And seldom, if ever, had anything like it been seen in Moscow.
Up to the British Embassy dashed the U.S.-made car with bulletproof windows that the Soviet Government had placed at Winston Churchill's disposal during his Moscow visit. Other U.S.-made limousines brought 38 other guests. They were bound to Spiridonovka House for a four-hour, 14-course lunch with Stalin. Stalin wore his simplest Marshal's uniform—no decorations. Churchill wore his uniform as honorary colonel of a Sussex regiment—four banks of decorations. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Molotov, U.S. Ambassador Averill Harriman, British Ambassador Archibald Clark Kerr were in mufti.
The guests were no sooner seated than Molotov proposed a toast: "To the health of Churchill, whom we are so glad to welcome here."
Churchill responded: "To Stalin. Very glad to be here again."
Churchill toasted again: "It is a sign of a great man and a great nation to be able to be magnanimous and generous. Marshal Stalin has been most generous in the compliments he has paid the Allies. . . ."
Stalin broke in: "That was not just a compliment—it was the truth."
Churchill went on: "Thank you. But we want you to know that all the world realizes it was the Red Army that clawed the guts out of the filthy Nazi war machine. To the Red Army."
Waiters brought on cold ham in aspic and Britain's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden brought up Poland. His toast: "To Mr. Gusev [Fedor Gusev, Soviet Ambassador to Britain]. One night he shared a flying bomb with the so-called London Poles. All of us hoped this common experience might bring understanding between Mr. Gusev and Mr. Mikolajczyk [Premier Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, of the Polish Government in Exile] which would bode well for the postwar world." All of the 40 guests drank to Gusev.
During the strawberry parfait and champagne Stalin rose again and toasted: "To those who worked for the peace of the world at Dumbarton Oaks. . . . But [the Allies] must be prepared for peace. . . ."
Said Ambassador Harriman : "To continued, collaboration."
There were two uninvited presences at the feast, but nobody toasted them.
One was Adolf Hitler, who had done what centuries of British and Russians had failed to do—bring Britain and Russia together.